CWG meeting 2013-01-28

Meeting of Communication Working Group on Monday 28th January 2013

Attendees

• rweait
• Harry Wood
• JonthanB

Topics

• grouptweet.com
• tweeting policy
• doing enough tweeting
• recruiting - getting more people tweeting and/or in CWG

Actions

• harry start policy doc describing balanced approach to comms.
• harry email henk about adding kate to the mailing group
• rweait email board asking if we get a new board member joining CWG

IRC log:

21:01 rweait: hello, all.
21:01 harry-wood: Hello
21:01 rweait: what's on the agenda today?
21:01 harry-wood: Do we have JonathanB too
21:01 harry-wood: ?
21:02 harry-wood: All three of us?
21:02 JonathanB: we do
21:02 JonathanB: \o/
21:02 rweait: Yay.
21:02 rweait: I guess we should find some more of us.
21:02 harry-wood: On the agenda. Grouptweet. Tweeting policy. Doing more tweeting (possibly with more people) and ... getting more people
21:03 rweait: any ideas for likely contributors? We seem to be without board oversight at the moment. We could run amok.
21:03 JonathanB: starts getting crazy
21:03 rweait: perhaps we should put "run amok" on the agenda.
21:03 harry-wood: hehe
21:04 harry-wood: Anything else on the agenda for the moment?
21:04 rweait: Where to start?
21:04 rweait: not aware of anything.
21:04 harry-wood: So for the minutes let it be noted (as was on emails) that I've set up grouptweet.com
21:04 harry-wood: for managing @OpenStreetMap twitter account
21:05 harry-wood: and SteveC has access with that
21:05 JonathanB: Yes -- sorry for the lack of help on that. Kids have been soaking up a lot of time recently.
21:05 JonathanB: Still not quite out of the woods :(
21:05 harry-wood: That's ok. You found that interesting bug with it :-)
21:06 rweait: So how does it work? If I tweet with @openstreetmap, it goes from @openstreetmap as well?
21:06 rweait: or do I have to lead with @openstreetmap ?
21:06 harry-wood: No. I disabled that
21:07 JonathanB: ...as I triggered it accidentally.
21:07 harry-wood: so now you have to either... login to grouptweet.com
21:07 harry-wood: and tweet from there
21:07 harry-wood: (which is the only way I've tried)
21:07 harry-wood: or I think it should pump out any message which DM to the OpenStreetMap account from your account
21:08 harry-wood: Grouptweet works well I think. Not quite as convenient as posting via tweetdeck, but the fact that you have log in separately somewhere is no bad thing
21:08 rweait: okay. I'll keep that in mind.
21:08 harry-wood: makes it harder to accidentally tweet
21:08 rweait: I've not posted as @openstreetmap before, so it's unlikely I'll need to now.
21:09 JonathanB: Well, since we lost RichardF we might need more help in that area.
21:09 harry-wood: indeed
21:09 harry-wood: d'you remember how many tweets per day we've been averaging in the past?
21:10 harry-wood: Think RichardF mentioned that stat somewhere
21:10 JonathanB: I was just looking at ThinkUp and it's not been running automatically recently. I'll talk to TomH
21:10 harry-wood: just under 1 tweet per day? something like that
21:10 JonathanB: It was around one aday
21:10 JonathanB: yes
21:10 harry-wood: so it could be good to aim to maintain that
21:11 harry-wood: meaning we should aim to pick one exciting thing to tweet about per day
21:11 harry-wood: (on average)
21:11 rweait: So we're back to 1) what to talk about (tweet about, blog about)
21:11 rweait: and 2) how to do it and stay on-message (on policy)
21:12 rweait: I guess for agenda, we could add "2013 big campaign" ideas welcome.
21:12 rweait: Is "policy" a quick discussion?
21:13 harry-wood: well. on the issue of tweeting policy. I actually think it's pretty similar to other channel policies
21:13 harry-wood: which is something we need to pick up again
21:13 harry-wood: I think the three of us have enough common sense to choose things to tweet about reasonably well
21:13 harry-wood: If anything we're probably a bit too cautious
21:13 harry-wood: (and this is the balance to strike)
21:13 rweait: I've been operating on the "if it's a board / WG decision / action it gos on blog.osmfoundation" vs."if it's osm related / community interest it goes on OGD."
21:14 JonathanB: Makes sense
21:14 harry-wood: Yes. I think @openstreetmap can be a bit of both of those
21:14 harry-wood: but more frequent and timely than blog posts
21:15 harry-wood: If we sit down and write an overbearing policy now and worry about whether we're sticking to it, then we wont manage to hit a target of around 1 tweet per day
21:15 : You have disconnected
21:16 : You have connected
21:16 : The topic for #osm-strategic is: Lets just replace the front page with a link to google maps
21:16 rweait: I'd like to see that model from the WGs, for the osmf blog. They send us something about what they've done; we post it.
21:16 rweait: aftter cleaning up the copy and formatting, if that is needed.
21:17 harry-wood1: sorry. connection dropped.
21:17 rweait: what did you see last, harry-wood?
21:18 harry-wood1: I said "1 tweet per day"
21:18 rweait: last I see from you is : (and this is the balance to strike)
21:18 rweait: since then:
21:18 harry-wood1: ah right hmm
21:18 rweait: (04:13:55 PM) rweait: I've been operating on the "if it's a board / WG decision / action it gos on blog.osmfoundation" vs."if it's osm related / community interest it goes on OGD."
21:18 rweait: (04:14:12 PM) JonathanB: Makes sense
21:18 rweait: (04:14:32 PM) harry-wood: Yes. I think @openstreetmap can be a bit of both of those
21:18 rweait: (04:14:53 PM) rweait: I've had plenty of items sent to me to post on OGD. In fact SteveC used to send me stuff to post, rather than post it himself.
21:18 rweait: (04:15:03 PM) JonathanB: That's no bad thing
21:19 rweait: (04:15:15 PM) rweait: I'm not sure what he used to determine whether he would post himself, or ask me to post.
21:19 rweait: (04:15:39 PM) rweait: I think that was before we talked about merging OGD and blog....
21:19 rweait: (04:16:09 PM) harry-wood1 [~Adium@80.111.112.87.dyn.plus.net] entered the room.
21:19 rweait: (04:16:20 PM) rweait: I'd like to see that model from the WGs, for the osmf blog. They send us something about what they've done; we post it.
21:19 rweait: (04:16:39 PM) rweait: aftter cleaning up the copy and formatting, if that is needed.
21:19 rweait: (04:17:27 PM) harry-wood1: sorry. connection dropped.
21:19 harry-wood1: thanks
21:19 rweait: that should mess up the attribution on the meeting bot. :-)
21:19 harry-wood1: hehe
21:20 harry-wood1: So I think If we sit down and write an overbearing policy now and worry about whether we're sticking to it, then we wont manage to hit a target of around 1 tweet per day
21:20 rweait: brb
21:20 harry-wood1: but if we get more people to tweet then we might need something written down
21:21 harry-wood1: Mostly it's commons sense, but less obvious things are for example... avoiding promoting a use of OSM if they didn't give us correct credits
21:21 JonathanB: Well, that's the example that got us where we are today
21:22 harry-wood1: indeed. That would be an easy rule to fall foul of
21:22 : harry-wood left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 480 seconds).
21:23 harry-wood1: and then things like "making a statement" about our relationship with certain organisations
21:23 JonathanB: Certainly we shouldn't make it look like there's any kind of relationship unless the board has said there is.
21:24 rweait: back now.
21:24 harry-wood1: yeah. so anything which comes out of @OpenStreetMap can have the feel of being very official, and might (I suppose) have legal ramifications.
21:24 harry-wood1: So certain topics to be wary of
21:25 harry-wood1: It's all common sense, and striking a balance between worrying about such things and blasting out messages in a timely manner.
21:25 harry-wood1: Likewise with the blog really
21:25 rweait: yup.
21:25 JonathanB: To what extent to we allow/encourage mentioning competitors?
21:26 JonathanB: On the one hand, we want to show how OSM is a better alternative than proprietary data
21:26 JonathanB: on the other we don't want to look like we just slag off the competition
21:26 harry-wood1: Dunno. I've often thought we should go on the offensive against Google Map Maker more than we do, but I know RichardF and others have always recommended trying to ignore them :-)
21:27 JonathanB: Equally I often see tweets from Ordnance Survey that are ripe for a response (or a parody), but wonder how wise it is
21:27 rweait: That sounds more like an editorial, or an opinion piece, than a foundation blog.
21:28 rweait: re: comparing to other maps / data.
21:28 rweait: If the board or a WG were to come to an agreement on something like that, I suppose we could publish it.
21:28 rweait: But that sort of opinion is unlikely to be a group publication.
21:29 rweait: More likely, I think, that one person would publish such an opinion, and OSM might point to it as an interesting analysis...
21:29 rweait: or OGD more likely would point to it.
21:29 harry-wood1: commenting on the competition in always an wary of, and I think anything where it's any area to wary should be... more *likely* ... in the balance-of-considerations-notwithstanding-forthwith-hearafter... to trigger a discussion in CWG before the message goes out
21:30 rweait: by comparison, a board decision to fund a new piece of hardware (or something), would come straight from the OSMF-horses-mouth.
21:30 JonathanB: OK, so policy is that anything mentioning competition needs discussion and may not be posted unilaterally?
21:31 harry-wood1: The balance is always whether to bast out a message quickly without fuss
21:31 rweait: Sure.
21:31 rweait: I think mentioning the competition is worth discussing. (not that we actually have any competition.)
21:32 rweait: I didn't ask, in advance, about the SotM post today. What sort of policy makes that okay? Or am I in trouble? :-)
21:33 harry-wood1: There's also a middleground. If something's possibly a *little* bit problematic ...but mostly you think it's ok. Then email CWG but fire the message after a few hours if you hear no screaming objections
21:33 rweait: It's purely informational. it directly relates to an OSMF event (SotM)
21:33 harry-wood1: So I think we could try to write a policy which captures these ideas
21:34 harry-wood1: and I think 80%-90% of tweets would not require discussion
21:35 rweait: same for blog and OGD articles, I'd think.
21:35 harry-wood1: Now this all goes against Frederik's suggestion of course.
21:36 JonathanB: Remind me...
21:36 harry-wood1: He suggested we get in the habit of discussing every tweet
21:36 harry-wood1: Perhaps we could get in the habit of post-hoc discussing tweets/blogs/messages where they're worth noting from the previous week
21:37 rweait: It is unlikely that we need spontaneity. It might just be more convenient to do it now, rather than consider then do.
21:37 JonathanB: No, providing we have a policy that we can look at that says "is this OK to do myself?" then discussion of everything is too laborious
21:37 harry-wood1: I think blogs are always worth noting in CWG discussions, and actually we usually do.
21:37 harry-wood1: (as post-hoc thing I mean)
21:37 rweait: Is the burden of prior discussion too onerous for the subset of non-controversial tweets?
21:38 harry-wood1: rweait: Yes I would say so yes. for 80%-90% of tweets
21:38 harry-wood1: and even the burden of discussion after the fact I would say
21:38 rweait: okay, I'll go along with that.
21:39 harry-wood1: Shall we try to write a policy then
21:39 rweait: perhaps a standing agenda item to bring up any recent tweets posts that deserve discussion.
21:39 harry-wood1: I can kick off a document
21:39 harry-wood1: yes
21:39 rweait: +1 harry-wood
21:39 JonathanB: +1
21:40 harry-wood1: I think it's actually no different in broad aim than the previous policy document we started writing. But we went off on a bit of a tangent with that
21:40 rweait: It's a shame we have to go over this when we don't seem to have any of our posts as controversial.
21:40 rweait: The current problem was a distributed password where one user fell out of touch, and didn't realize their mis-step.
21:40 harry-wood1: indeed. But part of the reason to do it, is to feel more confident in bringing on more people to have posting rights
21:41 rweait: And we fixed that.
21:42 rweait: next item? getting more people, or 2013 campaign ideas?
21:42 harry-wood1: Yes grouptweet means the situation of not knowing who tweeted, should not re-occurr.
21:42 harry-wood1: ....although me and RichardF still carry the master password :-O
21:42 JonathanB: and Me
21:43 rweait: oh, here we go again. :-)
21:43 harry-wood1: I was pondering whether actually we should ask the sysops to set-up the group tweet account, and change the password on the twitter account
21:43 harry-wood1: and then keep the password with whatever procedures they have for keeping passwords
21:43 rweait: works for me.
21:43 JonathanB: As a point of information, although FB and G+ allow multiple admins, they dont' appear to have any tracking of who did what.
21:44 JonathanB: +1 to the pwd idea
21:44 rweait: Interesting. any discussion of that in FB, G+ groups?
21:44 harry-wood1: mmm right. So similar problems can arise on FB & G+
21:45 JonathanB: In theory.
21:45 rweait: no obvious solution for G=, FB?
21:45 JonathanB: In practice we can see who *could* have posted something and just ask
21:45 JonathanB: rweait: The systems will catch up at some point
21:45 rweait: I guess that's better than we had on T
21:46 harry-wood1: ok. And at the moment that's quite a small list of people
21:46 rweait: can we move on?
21:46 harry-wood1: yes
21:46 harry-wood1: next topic
21:46 harry-wood1: Do we have a next topic?
21:47 rweait: more CWGers or 2013 campaign?
21:47 rweait: any suggestions for new staff to add to CWG?
21:47 harry-wood1: We need awesome comunicators
21:48 harry-wood1: people who can spell 'communicators'
21:48 rweait: :-)
21:48 rweait: or hard worker, well informed, willing to learn.
21:48 harry-wood1: I was wondering about pascal neis
21:49 harry-wood1: who's the other guy that does the wochenitze
21:49 rweait: interesting thought.
21:49 rweait: I like the idea of exploring that.
21:49 harry-wood1: They're good at having their ear to the ground and spotting the news stories
21:49 harry-wood1: so it could make sense for them to be on tweets
21:50 JonathanB: Not a bad idea
21:50 rweait: could you ask him / them?
21:50 harry-wood1: yes can do
21:51 harry-wood1: The more I think about it, the more I think the moderation features of grouptweet would be good
21:51 rweait: LWG is seeking contributors as well. Perhaps a general call for participants as a blog post? With the specific LWG and CWG openings listed?
21:52 rweait: I think we should rach out to those we think would be good,as well.
21:52 rweait: reach out.
21:52 harry-wood1: The main problem with "those people I think would be good" is that they're all the same talent pool of overstretched folks who are already in OSMF, or trying to avoid it
21:53 rweait: quite.
21:53 rweait: or not willing to step into the line of fire.
21:53 harry-wood1: At this point we should mention Kate Chapman
21:53 harry-wood1: has volunteered for CWG
21:53 rweait: oh that's right.
21:53 rweait: but time zones will be a challenge?
21:54 harry-wood1: I think the answers "YES!" ...but sadly she's in an awkward timezone yes
21:54 JonathanB: Has she been added to communication@osmf?
21:54 harry-wood1: but... certainly somebody else we could get on the tweeting
21:54 harry-wood1: no
21:54 harry-wood1: I'll ask henk to do that shall I?
21:54 JonathanB: We should probably get out of the idea that the *only* time we can discuss stuff is here, now/
21:55 harry-wood1: yes
21:55 rweait: Also, I think it's customary to have board oversight on each WG. With RichardF gone, who will add CWG to their list?
21:56 rweait: Oliver stepped out last year, I think. Henk was here for a while, iirc.
21:56 harry-wood1: Well. A board member would be welcome!
21:56 harry-wood1: rweait could you email board with quick message pointing out the gap?
21:57 rweait: certainly discussion of tweetas, etc can be done by email. Especially if the response is "np. go ahead."
21:57 rweait: Shall do.
21:57 rweait: to board.
21:57 harry-wood1: great
21:57 harry-wood1: I'll email henk and get him to add Kate to the mailing group
21:57 harry-wood1: (think it's still henk managing that)
21:58 JonathanB: Is there a reason it was set up the way it was?
21:58 harry-wood1: Apparently its a google somethingorother handles the email groups
21:58 harry-wood1: Don't really know how it works
21:59 JonathanB: Not mailman on OSMF servers?
21:59 rweait: I think we accidentally ended up with both communication@ and communications@ .
21:59 harry-wood1: no no. it's not mailman for the internal OSMF working group emails
21:59 rweait: Then they fell out of sync.
22:00 rweait: Ideally one should hold the list members and the other just point to the one.
22:00 harry-wood1: Ah yeah I'll remind henk to check that (if necessary)
22:00 JonathanB: Is it archived? can we see the archives?
22:01 harry-wood1: jonathanB: ...well actually I suppose it could be mailman. I heard it was google something.
22:01 harry-wood1: but maybe it was google appengine... which could be running mailman
22:01 JonathanB: OK -- Grant runs teh OSMF stuff doesn't he? I'll ask...
22:02 harry-wood1: anyway. I'll ask henk to add Kate and check who's on the emails. We might also have a trail of people who should have been taken off the communication@ emails
22:02 harry-wood1: Any other topics to discuss this evening?
22:02 : Blackadder left the room (quit: Quit: heading for the next unmapped place=).
22:03 harry-wood1: I have one other topic I remembered, but we can leave it for next time
22:04 harry-wood1: So if there's nothing else
22:05 harry-wood1: rweait JonathanB .... see you next time
22:06 JonathanB: 'k - next time
22:06 rweait: cheers,